


A Side Trip

by thewightknight



Series: First Order Husbands [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dantooine, M/M, Sexual Content, angry space boyfriends, but not the main characters, filling in the blanks, first order husbands, people die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't die.  The shuttle dropped out of hyperspace exactly where it should have, on the edge of the Dantooine System. The troopers didn't completely relax, not with Ren hovering in the background, but there was a definite drop in the tension levels in the cockpit as the stars settled into points instead of streaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Side Trip

**Author's Note:**

> A friend of mine let me know that today is [National Kiss a Ginger Day](http://hotforginger.com/blog/international-kiss-a-ginger-day/)! Hooray! So this is a bit rough, but I pushed through to try to finish it so I could post it especial today, in celebration. 
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> Wookiepedia is very vague on a lot of things, including descriptions of planets, so I'm making a lot of things up as I go.

They didn't die. The shuttle dropped out of hyperspace exactly where it should have, on the edge of the Dantooine System. The troopers didn't completely relax, not with Ren hovering in the background, but there was a definite drop in the tension levels in the cockpit as the stars settled into points instead of streaks.

Their best bet was the settlement that had sprung up in the old rebel base, Hux decided. It was the largest and the ships docked there were the most disreputable looking pieces of junk he'd ever seen.

With only eight troopers to his name he didn’t think their chances of survival were good if they landed at the port and marched in, not with the destruction of the Hosnian system such a recent occurrence, and there was no way he’d chance taking troopers out of their armor after FN-2187’s defection. His plan was to land some distance away and trek in to the settlement by himself.

He'd ordered the troopers to scour the shuttle for trade goods that weren't recognizably First Order in origin while he worked to clothe himself with the same restriction, realizing that he had few options at the same time as he surveyed the meager pile they’d assembled. 

His best bet was just to strip down, as he had when working on the engines, he realized, but there was hardly a point in bothering, as even if he included most of the portable gear on the shuttle it wouldn’t be enough to buy the parts he needed. 

He was startled when Ren spoke. “It’ll be enough. Let’s go.” He hadn’t factored Ren into his plans, not expecting the man to be well enough to make the trek to the old base, but if he was going to accompany Hux and planned to “assist” in the bargaining, his chances of securing what they needed had just gone from impossible to almost certain.

Hux locked down the engines before they left and gave the troopers orders to kill anything that approached. “Besides us, that is,” he added as an afterthought. It would be the ultimate irony to have secured the means to repair the ship and then end up being killed by his own men on his return and even worse to come back and found out they’d deserted. They wouldn’t get far without a hyperdrive but they could easily hop over to another settlement, sell the shuttle and disappear once Ren and Hux had left, and he did not want to find himself stranded on this rock on the edges of civilization.

Ren’s pants had survived mostly intact, unlike the rest of his clothing. He’d pulled a body glove out of storage to replace his ruined garments, hacking the bottom half off to cover the upper portion of his body. The formfitting garment accented his lean torso and he’d misjudged the length when he cut, so it rode up from time to time, exposing a strip of skin above the waistband of his pants. Between that and the places where Hux had cut away at the fabric of his trousers when treating his wounds it was hard for Hux to keep his mind their surroundings as they walked.

Luckily Dantooine demanded a good bit of his attention. To reach the old rebel base meant traversing a rocky plain dotted with sparse shrubs and outcroppings left from some ancient glacial event. The gravsled with their goods had no problem with the terrain but it was rough terrain for walking and there were patches of loose sand and gravel that shifted treacherously underfoot.

Ren was silent as they traveled, for which Hux was alternately grateful and irritated, as he had no idea how to behave around the man now. What had seemed a reasonable impulse when death was a real possibility had him questioning his sanity now that they were no longer in danger of becoming space flotsam.

As they neared the settlement the number of rock outcroppings grew, to the point where they found themselves threading their way through a series of shallow ravines. Ships normally docked aboveground and took lifts down to the caverns hollowed out beneath to conduct their business but there was some sign of other foot traffic so their arrival by this route wouldn’t be too unusual. 

Hux would have been more worried about possible ambush if Ren hadn’t been with him, as the way was littered with offshoots, creating blind corners everywhere, but he’d assumed Ren would give him warning if there was danger ahead. He should have been paying more attention, it seemed. When a group of scruffy-looking humanoids stepped out in front of them he was taken completely by surprise. Turning, he saw their retreat had been cut off as well. He glared at Ren, who shrugged, seemingly unconcerned at their situation.

There were eight, no nine of them. They were all heavily armed, blaster rifles trained on Hux and Ren. Some of them looked the worse for wear, scraped and bruised, clothing torn. At least he wasn’t the only one having a bad week, he thought, as their leader started to speak.

 _We’ll be relieving you of that,_ the man said, not bothering with Basic. He had a wicked looking blaster, with a carved bone bayonet as long as his arm mounted beneath.

“I don’t think so,” Ren replied, and with a gesture the man flew backwards, hitting the side of the ravine with a sickening crunch of bone. In the shocked silence that followed Hux drew his blaster and shot two while they were staring blankly at the crumpled body of their leader. The thugs looked up just in time to see the wall of the ravine collapsed on top of the three that had stepped out behind Hux and Ren. The remaining three looked around at the crumpled bodies of their comrades, then turned tail and tried to run. Hux shot two of them in the back and the third flew sideways, colliding headfirst with a jagged outcropping. 

Hux spun, blaster at the ready, but none of their attackers were stirring. Dust from the fallen rocks sifted down, a red powder that settled in a thin film on the bodies. They’d gotten lucky, he realized. The thugs had been cocky, thinking they had numbers in their favor. If they’d shot first instead of trying to intimidate them he and Ren would be dead now. 

One of the three that Ren had dropped rocks on was starting to stir. Hux hesitated before finishing him off, wondering whether it was worth it to try to find out whether they had a ship squirreled away somewhere. While he was debating the man decided things for him, suddenly lunging forward with a vibrocutter in his hand. He didn’t get a chance to shoot. The hand holding the blade wrenched back and to the side, the snap of bone echoing off the rock walls. The man tried to scream, but found no air to do so, and as Hux watched his struggles weakened and then ceased.

“They had a disagreement with another gang,” Ren said. "Their ship is in worse shape than ours.” Ren’s voice was off, subdued, and his breathing was ragged. He was leaning against the sled, hand clasped to his side. It looked like the bowcaster wound hadn’t completely healed and he’d strained it again. Hux started towards, exclaiming in shock as Ren began pounding his fist into his side, managing to catch his arm. 

“Stop that. Get ahold of yourself. Damnit, Kylo!” he swore as they struggled. Damaging equipment was one thing, but this was going too far.

“Do not test me, Hux,” Ren growled, and Hux felt his temper slip.

“Well, someone has to.” He gasped as he was spun, slamming back into the crates on the sled, Ren pressing him down, hand wrapped around his throat. A part of him wondered if it meant anything, that Ren was now throwing him around physically instead of using the Force. Another part marveled at how the scar that now bisected the right side of Ren’s face seemed to add to his beauty instead of detract from it. And then there was that other part, lower down, that reacted to the feel of Ren pressed up against him.

Ren apparently felt it too because with another growl he kissed Hux, hard enough to bruise both their lips, long enough to leave him gasping, before he pulled back, releasing him and taking several steps away.

“The pain is a tool. It helps me focus, helps me heal,” Ren said after a few moments. 

Hux waited, but that seemed to be all the explanation he was going to get. “So you were hurting yourself to heal yourself?” There was no response. Ren just stood there, eyes closed, fingers clenching and unclenching. “Okay, fine. You keep doing that and I’ll see if these people had anything we could use.”

Hux found an assortment of different credits on the bodies. He stripped them of anything that looked sellable and added it to the sled. As an afterthought, he appropriated a vest and utility belt off of one of them and put them on. The smell embedded in the garment was horrendous but it did serve to make him look less regimental. The leader had a similar build to Ren, so he pulled off his chest armor as well. When he did so, a small pouch dropped to the ground. Curious, he picked it up and peered inside. When he realized what it contained he let out a low whistle. 

“Find something interesting?” Ren had come up behind him without him noticing. 

Hux upended the pouch, spilling a handful of nova crystals out into his palm. “If they had these, why were they bothering to waylay travelers?” he asked, then shook his head and answered his own question. “Because the rest of them didn’t know he had them, of course. Well, this will make our job easier.” He let half the crystals fall back into the pouch, put it in one of his vest pockets and the rest loose in another. 

Ren donned the leader’s armor without protest, much to Hux’s surprise. As an afterthought, Hux picked up the leader’s blast rifle as they headed out. It was a savage looking weapon and it might serve to discourage other attacks, he thought as he slung the strap across his shoulders.

They reached the settlement without any further incidents and Hux’s inquiries got them directions to a Neimoidian named Nossosk. The alien predictably tried to swindle them, quoting them a price for approximately a fifth of the value of the goods they’d brought with them and then continuing with an initial quote for the parts they needed that was high enough they could have bought another ship instead. They dickered back and forth and Hux could sense Ren growing impatient behind him. With the nova crystals, he could have met the slimy creature’s first price and had some left ove but just handing over a fortune without haggling would put a target on their backs when they tried to leave. He could admit to himself that the blatant attempt to cheat them had gotten his back up, too. Stubbornness had always been his biggest flaw, according to his father. 

When they reached a price that wasn’t too exorbitant Hux made a show of digging into his pocket, pulling out three of the crystals.

“This should cover it, yes?” His motion had dislodged the strap of the blaster rifle and it swung around to the front as he placed the crystals on the counter. Nossosk paid no attention them, focusing instead on the weapon. 

“Mother of Moons! I know that weapon. That is Tasu Leech’s. If any of the Kanjiklub see you with that ….” His eyelids started to flutter and he backed away, shoving the crystals across the counter at Hux. “You are walking dead men.”

“If Tasu Leech was one of the men who tried to attack us on the way here, then yes, it was Tasu Leech’s rifle.” Hux put extra emphasis on the word _was_. “And the fact that I’m standing in front of you here with it instead of lying dead in the wastelands outside this miserable hole should have made you realize that we are not people with whom you want to fuck.”

Nossosk swallowed, eyelids blinking even more rapidly, then swept the crystals from the counter, obviously now more interested in getting them out of his shop than fleecing them of their credits. A few shouted commands and help appeared to load their purchases onto the sled. 

Ren watched them work, arms crossed across his chest, and when one of the workers met his eyes it squeaked in alarm, almost dropping the crate it held. 

"He doesn’t say much, does he?” Nossosk said, filling the silence with his nervous chatter.

“Consider yourself lucky. You don’t want to be talking to him. Of the two of us, I’m the nice one.” Hux grinned, no humor in it, just teeth. Nossosk looked back and forth between the two of them, hands in constant agitated movement. Hux bit back a genuine smile as he looked over at just the right moment to catch that little twitch at the corner of Ren’s mouth again. Someday he’d make that man forget himself and actually laugh, he told himself.

After all the parts were loaded onto their sled and they were preparing to leave, Ren spoke up for the first time. “Sending your people to follow us to our ship would be a very bad idea.” His voice was flat, no expression showing on his face, but Nossosk still turned a sickly shade of grey as he shook his head. Once the sled was loaded he ducked back into his shop, slamming the door in their faces and they heard bolts being slammed in place.

“`I’m the nice one.’” Ren mimicked Hux’s tones perfectly. “Really?”

“We could take a poll when we’re back on the _Finalizer_ ,” Hux said, and Ren snorted.

The trip back to the shuttle was uneventful, a welcome change, and they still had eight troopers waiting for them back at the shuttle. He oversaw the unloading of the sled but before he could begin the repairs Ren spoke up.

“A word, General Hux.” 

“Only one?” Hux murmured as he dismissed the troopers with a nod of his head.

Ren did, as it turned out, only have one word to say, a single syllable, a “fuck,” spoken in a voice barely above a whisper as Hux pushed into him, back pressed into the wall, legs wrapped around Hux’s waist. Anything else he may have said was lost in the pounding of blood in Hux’s ears as Ren arched into his thrusts, and after a time he lost track of where Ren’s moans stopped and his began.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second time I've picked on poor Kanjiklub. I was going to spread the mayhem around, except Tasu Leech's blaster rifle is so freakin' cool. It was one of the little details that jumped out at me watching the film. It's called the Huttsplitter.
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> Also, I was totally inspired by this piece of fan art when I wrote part of the story:  
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> [Ren and Hux](http://crystallizedtwilight.deviantart.com/art/Ren-and-Hux-582035326) by [CrystallizedTwilight](http://crystallizedtwilight.deviantart.com/) on [DeviantArt](http://www.deviantart.com)
> 
> P.S. be sure to check out the [outtake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5979409) for this part.
> 
> Feel free to come say hi over on [tumblr](http://thewightknight.tumblr.com/).


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